by Maisey Yates
“She married him.”
“Fair enough,” Bea said, “but she didn’t intend to marry him. Why is she allowed to have sex and I’m not?”
“It’s not you personally. It’s you and me. I think it would stress her out. I think she would be worried about what that would do to...everything. You know how she is. She’s a control freak.”
“Yeah,” Beatrix said. “I mean, seems to be a genetic thing.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re not really less of one. You’re just one in a different way. But you still are one.”
“Let’s just keep this between you and me. Not because you should be embarrassed. But because it would be better if we didn’t have to answer to anyone else, don’t you think?”
She had to admit, that was a fair enough point. But, she also wanted to find a way to mention to Jamie that this had happened. Because she would absolutely love to see the look on her friend’s face when she realized that Beatrix was the one who actually had more experience with men now.
“I’m sorry about what I said,” she said, moving to the edge of the bed and getting up on her knees so that she was eye level with his collarbone. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her breasts to his chest, and she could feel him getting hard against her. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I said a whole bunch of brainless stuff. You didn’t deserve that. It wasn’t about you. It was about me.”
“What I said was mean,” she said.
“It was true though,” he said. “Wasn’t it?”
She shifted uncomfortably and looked up at him. He wasn’t looking at her.
“I’m not an idiot, Beatrix. I know all the things that you said. But I try not to think about it. And I keep thinking... We’ll just see how it goes. But it’s not changing.”
“There are a lot of things you can do,” she said. “You don’t have to ride bulls to make a living.”
“I don’t need to make a living anymore, Beatrix. I’m like you. Independently wealthy.”
“Well, except you didn’t get it from your... From a parent.”
She stumbled over the word father, because it was just tricky to know what to call Jamison Leighton anymore. He was her father, in that he had raised her as his own daughter. But then, being raised as Jamison Leighton’s daughter was sometimes more curse than blessing. “So you don’t have to work. You can choose what you want.”
He stood there and looked stunned for a minute. “I’ve never looked at it that way, I guess. I always did what I had to. What I had to make myself into something.”
“I understand that.”
“I guess I’m going to have to figure out what I want after this.”
“Well,” she said slowly, wiggling against him. He was fully hard now, that thick ridge of flesh pressed firmly against her midsection. “You don’t have to plan too far ahead right now. Maybe just the next hour or so?”
His lips curved up. “An hour, huh?”
“If you can.”
He chuckled and slid one fingertip slowly down the line of her spine, the callused skin making her shiver with desire. “I think that you are vastly underestimating what we might accomplish, Bea. You’re tough. A hell of a lot tougher than I think anyone gives you credit for. But I know what I’m doing in bed. On that you’re going to have to trust me.”
“I guess so,” she said, wiggling slightly, gratified by the groan that elicited from him. “Since you’re the only man I’ve ever been with.”
He bit out a curse, and she was gratified by that too. Because obviously Dane Parker was a little bit of a caveman. And for her part, she liked it.
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to take my word for it,” he said. “Not by the time I’m through with you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHEN DANE WOKE up the next morning the first thing he thought was not about how sore his body felt. It was not about the ache in his thigh. He didn’t just lie there, hoping that he was dreaming any kind of lingering pain, and when he snapped into full consciousness he would find that it had all been just a dream.
No, the first thought he had the next morning centered around the fact that he was hard. And the fact that there was a soft, very willing woman tucked up against him.
When they’d finished for the—maybe third time?—Bea had completely melted into his body, her delicious ass now pressed up against his erection. One of his hands was firmly wrapped around her breast, and for a full minute he just lay there and enjoyed those feelings. Her softness, those sweet feminine curves.
And the memories of last night.
He’d tried to put a limit on things, tried to be gentle with her, all things considered, but she had gotten frustrated with foreplay after a while and had tempted him beyond reason. And right about now he was thinking he’d like her to tempt him again.
He waited for there to be guilt too. But he didn’t feel any.
Why should he? Beatrix was right. She was a grown woman. And she knew what she wanted. Hell, she’d proven that to him quite a few times last night.
She squirmed in his arms, turning over to face him, looking up at him sleepily. “Good morning,” she murmured.
“Good morning,” he returned.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had done this. Woken up in bed with a woman. Not hungover. And on purpose.
He waited for it to freak him out. But it didn’t. It was Beatrix. Whether they were working on a chicken coop or lying in bed naked together, it was Beatrix.
“Dammit,” she said, letting her head fall back on the pillow, her curls rusty gold against the white pillowcase.
“What? Are you that disappointed to wake up and find me in bed with you?”
She covered her face and wailed through her hands. “Evan is in my house.”
He laughed and pried her hands away and dropped a kiss onto her nose. “Well, God have mercy on your panties.”
“At least I have one pair that will be okay.”
“Sorry about your bra though.”
She shot a narrow gaze at him. “You’re not sorry about my bra.”
He grinned, honestly shocked at the lightness in his chest. “I’m really not.”
“You’re a bad man, Dane Parker.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m a Boy Scout. A Boy Scout who has been on his best behavior for eight months. I didn’t do a damned naughty thing until you kissed me, Beatrix Leighton. So who’s the bad one?”
That seemed to amuse her, and he liked it.
“I’m supposed to work at the clinic today,” she said. “But I need to go and feed the chickens. And I need to get Evan out of my house.”
“Why did you leave Evan in your house?”
“Well, to be honest with you, I figured you would throw me out.”
“That’s not a lot of confidence in a seduction.”
She cleared her throat, looking sheepish. “I wasn’t really trying to seduce you.”
“The matching bra and panties say otherwise, Bea.”
“Well, it crossed my mind. But mostly I was coming to yell at you.”
He nodded slowly. “You did that.”
“I was going to tell you that I was a strong, independent woman who knew her own mind.”
“You demonstrated that.”
“And I figured if it led to sex then great.”
“It did,” he pointed out.
“But then, I guess I didn’t really consider the logistics past that.”
“Well, who can blame you. I find that logistics get a little bit fuzzy where sex is concerned.”
“Apparently,” she said.
“I have to go to Get Out of Dodge this morning. Hey, do you want to get a ride down with me? I’ll drop you off at the clinic.”
“Would that look...suspicious?”
“I don’t think so, seeing as we live on the same property.”
“True,” she said.
She got out of bed, and he wanted to drag her back in. He was so hard it was painful. And she was...
How hadn’t he noticed this? She wasn’t just pretty. She wasn’t just an easy port in a storm, or whatever the hell he had told himself at first when he had found himself attracted to her. She was exceptional.
Curvy and lush, her skin soft and delicious. And lord she was sweet.
One of his very favorite memories from last night involved tasting her between her legs until she shivered and shook and came apart. Though that led him to thinking about all the things they hadn’t done. He hadn’t had the chance to see that pretty mouth wrapped around him.
Oh yeah, they had some unfinished business, him and Beatrix Leighton. She started to collect her clothes and he watched, enjoying her movements as she went. Then she stopped suddenly and scurried back to the edge of the bed, pressing a kiss to his mouth, which shocked and delighted him.
“I just am really glad that I can kiss you now.”
Then she continued collecting her clothes, pulling them on and covering up his view. He got dressed after that, made coffee for the two of them and then hurried her down to her cabin, where he fed the chickens while she saw to hurricane Evan. When he returned from the chicken coop he saw her scooting the raccoon out of her house.
“Evan exits,” she announced. “Pursued by Bea.”
He snorted a laugh. “How bad was it?”
“Box of Cheerios down,” she said. “But all things considered it could be worse.”
“I suppose so.” He opened up the passenger door and held it for Bea, and she stared at him. “What?”
“You’re being a gentleman.”
“It’s fitting I play the part of gentleman now, since I corrupted you last night.” She got in as he said those words and he closed the door on her before she could argue with him about corruption, which he knew she was about to do.
He rounded to the driver’s side of the truck and put his hand on the handle, then stopped, looking at her through the window. She was beautiful. And right now, she was his.
He didn’t have anything in the whole damned world just now. His whole life had been reduced to rubble. But Bea made it seem like awfully pretty rubble.
His.
He’d never thought of a woman—a person—as his before. But she felt like it.
He didn’t know if it was because he had so little right now, and she was something—something soft and lovely and wonderful—to hold on to. Maybe.
All he knew was that now that it had hit him, it had hit him hard.
But given the way he’d realized he was attracted to her, that made sense too. It really was like getting trampled by that bull all over again. Sudden. Irrevocable. And leaving new sensation echoing through his body he couldn’t banish if he tried.
He shook the feeling off and opened the door, getting into the truck and starting the engine as he was treated to a lecture on how Bea had not been corrupted by him. Which he happily listened to all the way down to the clinic.
They pulled in to the driveway and before he could think better of it, he kissed her. Quick and light, but it left an impression on his lips and settled something heavy in his gut.
“I can come pick you up later, if you want.”
“I bet Bennett can bring me to the ranch,” she said, biting her lip and looking up at him. He wanted to kiss her again, but in the interest of not having to talk about their sex life to everyone he figured they shouldn’t risk getting caught.
Not quite so quickly, anyway.
“I’ll pick you up,” he said. “How about I get you around 4:30 and we can go drop paperwork off in town for the permits.”
“Okay,” she said, her gaze colliding with his.
“You have to go,” he said, his voice getting rough. “Because I’m going to end up making a spectacle of us.”
Bea left him quickly after that and he drove on to the ranch, the reality sinking in that he had to leave the bubble they’d been in at the winery and actually interact with people.
For quite a few reasons, Dane had no idea how he was supposed to face his sister. The fact that he’d gotten a voice mail from their father was one thing. The fact that he and Bea had slept together was another.
One of those things he did have to talk to her about. The other one he planned on taking to the grave with him.
He could only hope that Lindy had gone over to the winery rather than hanging around the ranch. And when he got there, it seemed that he was right.
He went to work straightaway, choosing to take an assignment deadheading flowers around the guest cabins with the new hires, rather than doing work with Grant or Wyatt.
By lunchtime, he was thinking he might have dodged having to see Lindy. But as he was about to grab his lunch in the mess hall and sit down at one of the long tables, she appeared, dressed immaculately for winery work and yet somehow...
Here.
“Hi,” she said, smiling at him. She looked for a moment like she might come forward and get a hug, but then didn’t.
“Hi,” he returned.
“What’s up?”
“Why do you think something’s up? I’m on lunch break,” he said, looking around the rustic mess hall, where some of the other hands had come in to grab their food.
“Right. You just look... Well, you look like you have something on your mind.”
“Nope. Nothing. My mind is a hollow, empty shell.”
He went over to where lunch was laid out and dished himself a bowl of chili, putting a heaping helping of sour cream and cheddar cheese on the top of it. Lindy opted for a salad.
“You don’t usually eat in here,” he observed.
“No,” she agreed, sniffing delicately. “I don’t. But I thought I would see if I could catch you today.”
“Why is that?” He took a bite of food and his stomach growled, his body suddenly very aware of how hungry he was.
“Well, because I wanted to see how you were doing. And I don’t mean your injuries, so don’t get mad at me. It’s just, you got pretty drunk the other night, and I wanted to make sure there was nothing going on that you didn’t tell me about.”
“As it happens, there wasn’t,” he lied. Because he was not going to get into the Bea situation. Lindy would skin him. Then she would kill him. And she would make sure that both things were done very, very slowly. “But there is something now. And I was going to talk to you about it—I was just game to avoid it for a while longer if I could.”
Lindy frowned. “What?”
“Dad called me.”
The frown flattened out, her eyes getting glassy. “Our dad?”
“The very one. The one we haven’t seen in...I don’t know...eighteen years, give or take.”
“Oh,” she said, looking down. It was so unusual to see Lindy looking at a loss.
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I didn’t call him back.”
“Should you... Do we...”
“I don’t know if I want to,” he said.
“Yeah,” Lindy responded.
“He was asking when I was going to get back out on the circuit. Because apparently he watches me ride.”
“Well, that’s...that’s just manipulative,” Lindy said. “He really called you?”
“Yeah,” Dane said.
His sister looked so vulnerable then. Younger. Like she had forgotten, maybe, that she liked to position herself as the protector. But it was okay. Dane didn’t mind doing the protecting.
“I’m still thinking about what I’m going to do. But I want you to know that whatever I decide... You don’t have to get involved. You have enough on
your plate.”
“He didn’t call me,” Lindy said softly.
Dane hadn’t realized until then that it might hurt Lindy. That their father had contacted him. He hadn’t realized, because he didn’t feel particularly honored.
“Bea said...” He looked up quickly and met his sister’s eyes, then looked down. He hadn’t meant to bring Bea up. “Beatrix said that I didn’t have a responsibility to him. That just because someone is a parent doesn’t mean you have to give them anything. Not when they gave nothing to you. And I think she has a point.”
“You told Beatrix?”
“She came up to the house right after I got the voice mail.”
He couldn’t take Lindy’s question in any way but suspicion. Which was ridiculous because there was no way Lindy would ever suspect that there was something happening with Bea and himself. He wouldn’t have believed it even a week ago.
It was like he had different eyes all of a sudden. Or was looking at the world from a different view. The one that came from walking slow with an old dog. One that let him see wildflowers, and seasons changing, and Bea as a beautiful woman.
He didn’t know what the hell magic she had over him right now. But for eight months his body had felt like a stranger’s. And it certainly hadn’t felt like...like a man’s body.
Bea had made him feel like a man.
The way that she touched him. The way that her lips had moved over his. The way her fingertips had skimmed his face. The way she had rolled her hips up against him.
The way it had felt to be inside her. Knowing he was the only one.
There were ugly truths hovering around the edge of his life, truths about his injuries and his future. Truths he’d been ignoring for far, far too long because facing them had seemed impossible.
Because facing a hollow life he hadn’t chosen seemed impossible.
Life didn’t seem hollow right now.
Being with her had made him feel more alive than he’d felt in months. She made him feel alive in a way that only the rodeo ever had. To get his adrenaline to spike like that usually took a one-ton animal and a crowd full of people cheering his name.
Or one petite woman with a riot of curls and a soft, sweet mouth.
